Giants manager Tony Vitello and president of baseball operations Buster Posey have a recent spring training chat at Scottsdale Stadium. (Photo by Suzanna Mitchell/San Francisco Giants/Getty Images)
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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – It’s been the spring training of Tony Vitello’s life. College coach makes good. Gets to the pros at 47. Signs an unheard of three-year, $10.5 million contract worth $3.5 million a year with a vesting option for a fourth as a manager with absolutely no Major League Baseball experience in any position.
Heck, he still calls himself coach. Word to the wise: In the majors you’re the manager, or skipper, or “skip.” The coaches are actually coaches – third base, first base, pitching, and so on. In college, you’re the head coach.
Be grateful, young man. He didn’t endear himself to anyone with his recent comment that if the story about leaving the University of Tennessee hadn’t leaked prematurely, “It might have changed the course of history.”
Meaning he might not have signed with the Giants?
The next day he had to clean that one up. Not good. It still made him look like he was having some buyer’s remorse. Perhaps the Giants will ultimately suffer from those same sentiments, but right now the company line is just fine. Though Vitello tried to play down the comment his father begged to differ.
“It was pretty much a nightmare for him,” Greg Vitello told the San Francsico Chronicle in a text message. “As you know, the university meant the entire world to him, however if he was going to make the move the process had to be in place. I am sure he went over it a million times in his mind how it could play out but, unfortunately, it never unfolded like he thought it might. Awkward — times 10.”
Vitello Unsure Whether Giants-A’s Are Still A Rivalry
It’s still awkward – times 10. In Monday’s pregame press conference before a game between the Giants and Athletics at Scottsdale Stadium, the younger Vitello noted it was nice for him to get a close up view of what he still thinks might be a San Francisco Bay Area rivalry. The A’s, of course, are no longer in Oakland. They are about to play their second season in West Sacramento on their way to Las Vegas in 2028.
“This is my first experience of being a part of the Bay rivalry,” Vitello said. “I’ve got to believe there’s a little bit of a crossover. There’s got to be a some people out there who like both teams.”
The A’s swept the Giants in a 1989 World Series that was halted for two weeks by a 7.0 earthquake on the eve of Game 3 at Candlestick Park and Vitello strangely cast that as some sort of a conspiracy: “I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist, but I was a young kid [growing up in St. Louis] watching that deal. What are the odds of these two teams still playing because it was October [17}? That they’re both in the World Series when the earthquake happened?”
So, what’s the conspiracy theory? It was a coincidence, not a conspiracy. “I don’t know. I don’t have one,” he said, laughing. “I don’t participate in that. I just remember at a young age just doing the math. I was a numbers guy. I liked both of those teams. It was just interesting the way that worked out.”
Back in those days, it certainly was a heated rivalry. But that ceased to be at the end of the 2024 season when the A’s fled the Oakland Coliseum. They moved there from Kansas City in 1968, but until interleague play began in 1997, their only regular contact with the Giants was in spring training or the Bay Bridge exhibition game series.
Vitello Will Begin To Realize The A’s Are No Longer A Rival
The two teams no longer play any meaningful “rivalry” games. The A’s and a roster chocked with young star players, are where the Giants and president of baseball operations Buster Posey want to be. The A’s are poised to reach fruition by the time they get to Vegas. The Giants, with an older roster and a novice manager, are treading water at .500.
They made no meaningful additions in the offseason save for center fielder Harrison Bader and now second baseman Luis Arraez. The team is short on frontline pitching and a viable closer. Right now, they are targeted at .500 again behind the Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks in the tough National League West.
Vitello obviously has his work cut out for him. He’s not even sure if the A’s are still in the Bay.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know what the appropriate answer is for that. A part of, yes, but to what extent? It’s interesting. I’m sure they’re sorting things out what’s best for them. I’m all for some fans who like a team to be as local as possible slowly coming over to be a part of Giants nation.”
This is all gibberish, of course. Sacramento is 90 miles from the Bay Area. The A’s play in 10,000-seat Sutter Health Park and share it with the Giants’ Triple-A club.
The only thing that keeps them local is their games are still broadcast across the region on NBC Sports California, the reason they went to the state’s capital rather than play at their own minor-league park in Summerlin, Nev., to begin with. Their rights deal paid them $70 million a year until 2024, but they took an undisclosed hair cut when they left Oakland. That will end in 2028 when they move to Vegas, the 42nd largest TV market in the U.S. The Bay Area is the sixth.
Vitello is an educated guy. He has a degree in management from University of Missouri where he played college baseball and earned All-Big 12 Academic honors. He’s smart as a whip, Posey keeps insisting. He needs to do better than all this.